YouTube as a source of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient education

Abstract

Objective Conduct a social media content analysis of COPD patient education videos on YouTube. Methods A systematic search protocol was used to locate 223 videos. Two independent coders evaluated each video to determine topics covered, media source(s) of posted videos, information quality as measured by HONcode guidelines for posting trustworthy health information on the Internet, and viewer exposure/engagement metrics. Results Over half the videos (n=113, 50.7%) included information on medication management, with far fewer videos on smoking cessation (n=40, 17.9%). Most videos were posted by a health agency or organization (n=128, 57.4%), and the majority of videos were rated as high quality (n=154, 69.1%). HONcode adherence differed by media source (Fisher’s Exact Test=20.52, p=.01), with user-generated content (UGC) receiving the lowest quality scores. Overall level of user engagement as measured by number of “likes,” “favorites,” “dislikes,” and user comments was low (mdn range = 0–3, interquartile (IQR) range = 0–16) across all sources of media. Conclusion Study findings suggest that COPD education via YouTube has the potential to reach and inform patients, however, existing video content and quality varies significantly. Future interventions should help direct individuals with COPD to increase their engagement with high-quality patient education videos on YouTube that are posted by reputable health organizations and qualified medical professionals. Patients should be educated to avoid and/or critically view low-quality videos posted by individual YouTube users who are not health professionals.

Lingual orthodontic treatment: A YouTube™ video analysis

“…8 Since 2005, YouTubee has become a phenomenon for commercial and personal content distribution as well as for social networking, and it is the third most-visited Web site after Google and Facebook. 9 The ease of uploading videos, constant improvement of Web site content to support online sharing, and quick access to content are the factors that facilitate the growth and appeal of the YouTubee Web site. 10 As the use of the YouTubee Web site has become popular in dentistry and medicine, the quality of YouTubee content has been assessed in a variety of studies.…”

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“…Following the methodology of previous academic YouTube-based studies (e.g., Moran, 2014;Stellefson et al, 2014), we used YouTube's search function and the keywords and phrases (in order) rip current, rip safety, rip tide, undertow, how to escape a rip, and how to survive a rip to identify appropriate videos. Rip current-related videos were added to a database between February 25, 2015, andMarch 2, 2015, where the following information was noted: upload date, number of views, duration, uploader, and URL.…”

Living with asthma and chronic obstructive airways disease: Using technology to support self-management – An overview

“…86 Unsurprisingly they report the quality as mixed: 70% of the 223 patient education videos they evaluated demonstrated high scores providing quality and trustworthy health information, but 20% were very poor. This suggests that clinicians may want to find videos they have looked at themselves to ensure they are suitable, and be specific in recommendations.…”